The first 18 players named to Team Canada were announced last week, and
include gold-medallists from the IIHF World Junior Championship, the IIHF
World Championship, and the Olympic Winter Games.

Vlasic
joins Matt Duchene (Haliburton, Ont./Colorado, NHL), Claude Giroux (Hearst,
Ont./Philadelphia, NHL), and Ryan O’Reilly (Varna, Ont./Buffalo, NHL) as
players who will bookend their NHL season representing their nation – the
four were part of the Canadian team that won gold at the World Cup of
Hockey before opening the 2016-17 NHL season, and will suit up for the
red-and-white again at worlds. Vlasic has also won gold for his country at
the 2014 Olympic Winter Games, and won silver with Canada at the 2009 IIHF
World Championship in Switzerland.

Marner
will be representing his country in international competition for the third
time in his career; he won gold at the 2014 Memorial of Ivan Hlinka tournament, and was
part of Canada’s National Junior Team at the 2016 IIHF World Junior
Championship. Marner is coming off his rookie season with the Toronto Maple
Leafs as the 2016-17 rookie leader in regular-season assists, having
notched 42 in 77 games.

Schenn
competed at the 2014 and 2015 IIHF World Championships, helping Canada to
gold in 2015. He is also a two-time IIHF World Junior Championship
silver-medallist (2010, 2011), and won gold for Canada at the 2008 IIHF World U18 Championship. Drafted fifth overall by the Los Angeles Kings in 2009, Schenn has
been a regular fixture on the Philadelphia Flyers’ roster since the 2013-14
season, and is coming off his two strongest offensive NHL seasons.

Johnson
will compete at his second IIHF World Championship, having been part of the
Canadian squad in 2010. The Calgarian played the 2016-17 NHL season for his
hometown Flames following stints with the New York Rangers, Phoenix
Coyotes, Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, and Buffalo Sabres since first
entering the league in 2009.

This year’s Team Canada
roster
includes five players who captured gold at the 2016 IIHF World Championship
(Pickard, Matheson, Duchene, O’Reilly, Scheifele), seven who were selected
to play at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey (Team Canada – Duchene, Giroux,
O’Reilly, Vlasic; Team North America – Couturier, MacKinnon, Scheifele),
and six also won gold at the 2015 IIHF World Championship (Barrie,
Couturier, Duchene, Giroux, O’Reilly, MacKinnon).

Team Canada hits the ice in Geneva, Switzerland, for a
pre-tournament camp, which includes a tune-up game on May 2 against the Swiss. Chris Lee (MacTier, Ont./Metallurg Magnitogorsk, KHL), a two-time member
of Team Canada at the Deutschland Cup (2012, 2016), and 2004 Memorial Cup champion Mike Card
(Kitchener, Ont./Löwen Frankfurt, DEL2) will join the squad for the
pre-tournament camp and game in Geneva.

Canada opens the
2017 IIHF World Championship
against the Czech Republic on Friday, May 5, with preliminary-round games
scheduled through Tuesday, May 16. The bronze- and gold-medal games will
take place on Sunday, May 21.

TSN and RDS, Hockey Canada’s official broadcast partners, will carry 64 and
32 games respectively; schedules and network information can be found at
TSN.ca
and RDS.ca.

Team Canada has won gold at the last two IIHF World Championships, going
undefeated during the 2015 tournament, and blanking Finland 2-0 in the
gold-medal game in 2016.

Since 1931, Canada was won the world championship 20 times – not counting
the years when Olympic Winter Games champions were also considered world
champion. The country has also collected 11 silver medals and six bronze in
that timespan.